When Google first announced Chrome OS, there were a lot of skeptics. Is the browser really all we need anymore? If you’re the right kind of person, sort of. Chrome’s meteoric rise in market share has taught something extremely useful to a company who lives and dies by whether or not you are connected to the Internet. They learned that there are large groups of people out there for whom the computer only has a single job, running a web browser. Sure, IM clients, music players, and maybe one or two other things exist on the computer, but not much else. Google tested this theory with the Cr-48, a reference unit made to test the Chrome OS experience. Google never made this device available to sell, and instead gave away tens of thousands of them to whoever asked. Now, we’re seeing the result of that experiment with Samsung’s Chrome OS device, now dubbed “Chromebook“.

In my opinion, the Cr-48 project was crucial to the development of the Chromebook. Chromebooks, you see, are not laptops. They aren’t netbooks, either, which is something I see more often than not. The Chromebook is a reboot of a type of laptop that existed about 17-20 years ago called a subnotebook. Subnotebooks were designed to be less functional then laptops in that they lacked removable storage, but still had the larger screen and full keyboard. This made them much lighter and thinner than laptops of the time. Everyone made them, even Apple. So, In order to attempt to shake the stigma of “its just a netbook”, Google shipped 30,000 of these subnotebooks for free to anyone who asked. Still, the Cr-48 was underpowered, and Chrome OS wasn’t quite ready for primetime yet.

So Google waited until day two of Google I/O to drop the news that Samsung and Acer were on board to bring out all new Chromebooks! For the purposes of this review, I am going to compare the Samsung Chromebook to the Cr-48, since it is the only other device in its class on the market. The Chromebook was never given an official price, but the average price they were sold for on eBay was $350, so we’ll go with that as the selling price.

Hardware

The Samsung Chromebook offers a pair of USB ports, an SD card slot, a SIM slot, and outputs for audio and video. The 3.5mm jack is pretty standard, but the mini display out comes with an adapter to allow you to connect to a normal VGA out device. despite having not only more ports but better access to the existing ports, the Samsung Chrombook is about a third thinner then the Cr-48. The keyboard feel very similar to the Cr-48, but the sensitivity and control of the trackpad is leaps and bounds above what the Cr-48 had to offer. The hinge holding Samsungs razor thin screen to the base feels incredibly solid, and allows you to open and close the lid with a single finger. Unlike the Cr-48, the battery in not user-replaceable, yet the average battery life is only slightly better at 10 hours.

The Samsung Chromebook comes with 16GB of onboard storage and 2GB of RAM, allowing for some basic offline storage that can be expanded by the MicroSD slot. Combined with a 1.66ghz Atom processor, it’s certainly not the fastest machine out there, but is still a significant increase over its predecessor. The internal microphone and 1M HD webcam make video chatting with someone over Google Talk or Google Hangout a smooth experience, generating a comparable experience to most built-in webcams.

Chrome OS – All grown up?

We’ve covered the evolution of Chrome OS pretty extensively here at Geek.com. From the initial iteration on the Cr-48 up to the latest version for the Samsung Chromebook, there have been significant strides in functionality and overall usability. Coupled with a boost in hardware, Chrome OS on the Samsung Chromebook handles all of your daily browsing tasks with ease. Streaming video through services like Hulu are now perfectly enjoyable, while more advanced users who operate multiple tabs across multiple windows will still find Chrome OS flexible enough to handle their needs. Anything that can be done in a modern browser can be done in Chrome OS, with a single exception. Silverlight. Microsoft’s “Flash killer” might not have been the runaway hit they had hoped, but it still drives many popular sited today, including Netflix.

At Google I/O we were told that Netflix support was “arriving soon” for Chromebooks, and yet even today if you attempt to play a video, you are presented with a very targeted error explaining that Netflix for Chromebooks is not yet available. Now, I have enjoyed my Chromebook experience since day one, but to lack the same functionality as a Nintendo DS is a pretty serious detriment to its viability as a platform.

Still, Chrome OS now comes loaded with all of the basic features you would need outside the browser, like a manageable file system or external device support. As it stands so far, I have yet to stick a mouse or keyboard into this Chromebook that didn’t immediately start working. Then, there’s the Chrome Web Store. It’s been a few months since Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio stepped across the stage and announced that Angry Birds was coming to the Chrome Web Store, alongside some extremely competitive in app pricing models. Since then, the Chrome Web Store has become home to collaboration utilities, photo editors, 3D modeling tools, and much more. The Web Store is growing daily, and adding more and more functionality as it grows.

The price or the function, one needs to change.

There’s a growing notion among early adopters that Cheomebooks are too expensive at $500. The other side of that is the notion that for $500, it needs to do something more than it does right now. I agree that a glaring omission to Chrome OS right now is a functional Offline Mode. Google Gears has been around for what, 4 years now? Wasn’t the whole point of gears to make services like Docs and Calendar accessible when not connected directly to the internet? These are concepts that Google has battled with in the past, and the fact that it wasn’t addressed early on as a result of those previous “lessons learned” was a warning for some.

Chromebooks get compared to tablets a lot when it comes to price. I find the comparison misleading at best. The browsing experience for every mobile device in existence pales in comparison to a fully functional build of Chrome. Additionally, each of the “Top 5 Free” Android apps and three of the 5 top paid apps are either derivatives of websites or function the exact same way on a web browser as they would on a Tablet. Chromebooks have either the same or better battery life then every Tablet I have come across thus far. Closing thought; if you can find a laptop with a full size keyboard, instantly powers on, has 8-10 hours of battery life with a 300 nit screen and a 2 year data plan from Verizon Wireless for under $500, I will concur that the Chromebook is too expensive.

Closing

The Samsung Series 5 Chromebook is a significant improvement on the Cr-48, and is the first of a refreshed class of devices that is being given new purpose thanks to Chrome OS. This is not a machine for the graphic designer or the software engineer. This could be a secondary device for those users, geared more for their leisure than productivity. As for the browser laden, those who are able to exist seamlessly within a browser and don’t even know it, Chrome OS just requires a bit of patience. It’s a new way to think about how you use a computer. The idea that you are tethered to a single device has been something Google has tried to do away with for years now, and Chrombooks are their most ambitious attempt to date. It’s not perfect, and there are some glaring omissions that need to be corrected in order for it to be for the average consumer, but Google has the ability to rapidly deploy those changes and make Chrome OS a real competitor.

Reader Comments

Doug Bolster

I don’t mind using free google products as a public beta tester like everyone else, and Chrome is an excellent web browser. However $500 for a chromebook which doesn’t offer basic features? If google wants me to spend money on their products they need to deliver better quality control. I hope Larry Page saying that “putting more wood behind fewer arrows” means the company will understand that people want Google to back their products and deliver quality.

http://jqpabc123.myopenid.com/ Comment This

Q: What do you call a Chromebook with a “functional Offline Mode”.

A: A netbook — they’ve been around for years, cost less, and offer greater functionality than a Chromebook.

A Chromebook has got to be one of the most unbelievably brain dead products ever. It’s Google’s version of Microsoft Bob.

Anonymous

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Ericom‘s AccessNow does not require Java, Flash, Silverlight, ActiveX, or any other underlying technology to be installed on end-user devices – an HTML5 browser is all that is required.